Recently we had a requirement to perform SQL Spatial functions on data that was stored in Azure SQL DW. Seems simple enough as spatial has been in SQL for many years, but unfortunately, SQL Spatial functions are not natively supported in Azure SQL DW (yet)!
If interested – this is the link to the Azure Feedback feature request to make this available in Azure SQL DW – https://feedback.azure.com/forums/307516-sql-data-warehouse/suggestions/10508991-support-for-spatial-data-type
AND SO — to use spatial data in Azure SQL DW we need to look at alternative methods. Luckily a recent new feature in Azure SQL DB in the form of Elastic Query to Azure SQL DW now gives us the ability to perform these SQL Spatial functions on data within Azure SQL DW via a very simple method!
Check out that Azure Feedback item if you’d like to see native spatial support rather than using elastic query. In the meantime, click through to see Rolf’s workaround.